


Glass Bones, Paper Skin

by whitchry9



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt Tony, Hurt/Comfort, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Sick Tony, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-02-20 09:40:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 12,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2424011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitchry9/pseuds/whitchry9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony is kidnapped by someone who holds a grudge against his father. At least he's not alone, because Clint's with him, like that's any consolation. He is there, right?<br/>The thing is, Tony can't be entirely sure, and as time goes on, Tony becomes unsure of anything.</p><p>17 chapters, and a bonus one</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I had a terrible time with the title for this one, and it was eventually decided by way of a poll.  
> Other title ideas included: beyond repair, this is how it feels (to take a fall), even greater depths, highest fall.
> 
> (The reason for this title is actually in a scene that didn't make it into the fic, but will be provided at the end, as a sort of deleted scene/bonus.)

Tony shivered.

Because, of course kidnapping him and keeping him hostage wasn't enough, so they also decided to have their hideout in the middle of a mountain range or something in December.

Also, dungeon. _Dungeon._ Seriously, they weren't known for being warm and cozy.

 

He took stock of the rest of his body, besides the being cold bit. Skin, yup, chilly. Underneath... nothing felt broken, and he'd had enough broken bones in his lifetime to be able to recognize when something was broken.

So he was thankful for that.

Various aches and bruises that would probably become apparent as time went on. Small scratches and abrasions, probably from being carted to wherever the hell he was.

And last... the headache. It was beyond a hungover sort of headache, and past the usually drugged headache, and  _god_ it was bad that he could classify his headaches like that. But it wasn't quite to a bleeding in the brain headache, which was something to be grateful for.

Probably.

So in between those pain levels meant likely concussion.

Tony was pretty sure he should have a stamp card for concussions. After ten he'd get a pony or something.

Eh, he could just buy himself a pony if he really wanted to. That was one of the issues with being rich. He had everything that he could want, and if he didn't, he could buy it.

What was he thinking about?

Right. Concussion, definitely.

 

He was distracted from his train of thought by a door opening, and he could have kicked himself for not realizing there was a door, and of course there was a door, idiot, but he did have a concussion, and frankly, that was being a little harsh on himself, even for you know, himself.

With the door opening, the room was flooded with light, and Tony winced. The light certainly didn't help his headache. He hid the pain, because he was not giving whoever this was even more satisfaction. He sat up a little straighter and faced the figure that entered.

 

“Hello Tony. Can I call you Tony? You'd always insist that it was Tony, not Anthony, but I don't know if you've changed your mind or not since then.”

Tony squinted. The man, definitely a man, was backlit, and Tony couldn't make out any of his facial features. The voice was... possibly familiar? Tony had met so many people in his lifetime, and so many of them would hate him, but not that many would have knowledge of his childhood, or be persistent and intelligent enough to actually carry out a kidnapping.

In fact, when he was growing up, there was only one person who was anywhere near Tony in personality or intelligence.

And fuck, because if that wasn't the answer, Tony didn't know what was.

 

“Tiberius Stone,” he whispered, his heart sinking. He wanted to be sick. Stone moved more into the light so Tony could see him better, and yes, it was him. Older than Tony remembered of course, and the years hadn't exactly been kind to him, but hell, Tony wasn't one to talk.

He'd gone to school with Ty, grown up with him. He was one of the closest things he had to a friend when he was young, by virtue of Ty being nearly on the same intellectual plane as him. Their fathers were heated business rivals until Howard finally drove Ty's dad out of business. Was that was this was about? Revenge? But Howard was dead, and had been for pretty much forever, and there wasn't much remorse from Tony there.

“I thought you were in Europe,” Tony muttered.

Ty shrugged. “We still are.”

Tony didn't react, but filed that bit of information away.

He shuffled himself along the floor instead, to lean against the wall.

“Well Ty,” he sighed. “I suppose you didn't just pick me up so we could catch up on old times. I mean, if you did, it's a bit of an overkill.” He rattled the chains to make his point.

Ty grinned, and it was frightening, like a shark.

Tony suddenly felt like Marlin and Dory.

“No,” he agreed pleasantly. “I mean, we can catch up, but I had some other activities planned for you. Well, not really activities, but I sort of do plan to keep you for, well, ever.” he shrugged. “Revenge I guess. For what your father did to my father.”

Tony laughed, and it was harsh in his throat and the cold air.

“Ty, I don't know if you remember this or not, but me and dad? Didn't get along so great. In fact, we kind of had a mutual hatred of each other.” He paused. “Might be a bit too strong of a word. But needless to say, we weren't close. I hated him pretty much up until the moment he died, and after that... well, I didn't forget what he'd done, but it's not really popular to speak ill of the dead.” Tony shrugged, then hid his grimace, because _ouch._ “So we just didn't talk about him.”

Ty shrugged. “Yeah, I did know that. But it's not like it matters. You're still his son after all. It's the closest I can get to punishing him for what he did. Your father destroyed my family. He ruined my life. I had no future after our company went down.”

 

Tony sighed. “That was forever ago. Any chance I can convince you to forgive and forget?”

Ty made a tutting noise. “Oh Tony. Just because you grew a conscience and decided to make love and not war doesn't mean that anyone else did.”

Tony scowled.

“I am going to break you, Tony Stark. You think you've known pain before? I guarantee that it will be nothing compared to what I'm going to do to you. I know all about you, I know about your team, your history, Afghanistan. I am going to break you, and then after all that, I will dump you back home with your precious Avengers so they can see you take your last breaths.”

He grinned. “And I'm going to _love_ it.”

He sauntered back to the door, which was when Tony, god he was such an idiot, noticed the window.

He could only blame so much on the concussion, because the room on the other side of the window was bright, and with the light, he could more clearly visualize his own cell, but that wasn't what caught his attention.

No, it was the man in the other room, the one he immediately recognized, that caught his attention.

 

“Oh god,” he breathed. “Clint.”

He glared at the Stone. “Why the hell did you take Clint.”

“There's no one there Tony,” he said, frowning. “Why would I want anyone else but you?”

Tony's conviction wavered slightly.

“He's there. I can see him. Don't lie to me!”

Ty shrugged. “So prove it. I'm telling you there is no one there. You really want to argue with me? I'm pretty sure out of the two of us, I'm the one who's not concussed.”

Tony glared at him for a moment before looking away.

 

He turned his attention back to the mirror, which had to be a two way, dark on his side, light on the other, so Clint couldn't see him.

Well, that was fine. He didn't need to see Tony to know he was there.

 

“Clint!” he bellowed, cupping his hands around his mouth.

The man on the other side of the glass didn't so much as flinch.

Something in Tony's stomach sank. He clambered to his feet.

“Clint!” he called again, stepping forward. He didn't get far, his feet disappearing from under him and his right elbow cracking painfully against the cold cement floor.

“Fuck,” he hissed, noticing for the first time the shackles around his ankles.

He traced them back to their origin, which appeared to be... the cement. The cement was poured around the chains, leaving nothing for Tony to pull at, pull apart, make use of.

He grudgingly admitted it was clever.

 

He whipped his head around to glare at Stone.

“What, you don't want me banging on the glass? Afraid I might break it and hurt myself? Alert Clint to my presence?”

Stone just shook his head, maybe a bit sadly.

“There's no one there Tony,” he repeated, and with that, left, locking the cell door behind him.

Seriously. Who used cells anymore?

Tony shivered again, the motion sending shockwaves of pain through his elbow and knees.

_Fuck it was cold._

He glanced up at Clint again. Surely he was there? Tony wasn't just seeing things. He'd done that before. But this seemed... different. Real.

Of course, the other hallucinations had seemed just as real until afterwards.

Yeah, he was probably concussed.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Tony, having learned his lesson with the shackles, and seriously, why hadn't he taken a complete inventory of the room before, _stupid stupid,_ took some time to commit his surroundings to memory.

 

In addition to the chains that were integrated into the cement, the room seemed to have been made solely for the purpose of holding him in. Both the door and the window were out of his reach, and the toilet consisted of a hollowed out area in the ground. It was similar with the bed, which was simply a mattress that didn't contain springs. He hadn't been given a blanket. His clothes had been removed while he was unconscious, and those bastards had dressed him in a pair of scrubs.

He had nothing but his mind and his arc reactor.

He'd done more before, in a cave, but at least he had a box of scraps then. He knew that Tiberius wouldn't be that stupid.

God, if only he was that stupid.

 

But he wasn't.

He'd even taken the tracker out that Tony had implanted after the whole Afghanistan incident. And that was top secret, like super secret, and it wasn't like he could see it with any imaging equipment, and there was no discernible scar, since it had been something he'd designed himself and Jarvis had helped him do-

Tony stopped at that. Because really, the only explanation for Ty knowing where to find the tracker was if Tony had told him, or if he'd hacked into Jarvis.

No one was supposed to be able to hack into Jarvis. And Ty wasn't that good with computers, at least not good enough to be able to do that.

But the only other explanation was that Tony told him. It wasn't entirely out of the question, because there was that huge portion of time that had gone missing, and the drugs these days were highly developed, and he had no doubt that Ty could have gotten his hands on some that would make him talk and also force him to forget. Hell, maybe he'd invented them.

But he couldn't know either way. The end result was still the surgical wound on the back of his neck, which had been bandaged. Tony ran a hand over it.

Well, it was nice to know he wasn't trying to be killed immediately.

Or maybe this was worse, knowing that Ty didn't want anything from him other than suffering. That's all it was, really, him exacting revenge for some perceived slights.

 

Tony sighed. He was pretty sure this kidnapping would be even less fun than the last time, if it were even possible.

 

He designated it day one, even if it wasn't, and laid down on the bed to try and sleep. He didn't have high hopes for either sleeping or being able to keep track of time, but he could damn well try.

And it wasn't like he had much else to do.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He slept in fits and starts, his head still foggy from whatever drug or combination of drugs he'd been given.

He gave up on sleeping when a tray full of food was slid across the floor to him. Tony didn't manage to see whoever did the sliding, which was probably for the best. If looks could kill... He got slightly off topic thinking about the X-Men, which only meant the drugs were still in his system. Or he was blaming them.

The food was some sort of porridge, runny and disgusting looking. The tray was made of smooth plastic, and Tony could think of a few things to do with it, but they all involved more time that he'd have before guards came running in. And tools. He had nothing but his hands, and while his hands were good, they weren't that good.

He wasn't given silverware of course, because Tiberius would want to make the experience as humiliating as possible.

 

Tony considered not eating it. He really did. But he didn't know the last time he'd eaten anything, and his stomach was aching with the emptiness, and he couldn't deny himself any longer.

He grabbed the tray and slid it closer to him, examining the food carefully. Not like it made any difference if it was laced with anything, because he'd end up eating it sooner or later, but it made him feel slightly more secure that he didn't see anything noticeably wrong.

 

So he ate it, ignoring the indignity of having no utensils, because honestly, he'd lived through worse.

And he'd live through this. Which was why he had to keep his strength up.

(Even if it was awful.)

 


	3. Chapter 3

“What do you want Ty?” Tony asked, the next time his captor came to pay him a visit. He was on at least day three, but it was nearly impossible to tell anything beyond that. “I'm not in the mood for entertaining today.”

And he really wasn't. The food he'd been given hadn't agreed with him, whether it was due to something they put in it or another factor, and he spent most of (what he assumed was) the night alternating between dry heaving and short bouts of sleep. He could feel that he was dehydrated, on top of being exhausted and cold, and he wasn't in a mood to be tortured or fucked with, since he was fairly certain that would be the only reason Stone would come see him. To announce his torture plans and gloat, or something. And Tony didn't care. At all.

Ty smirked at him. “Not get enough beauty sleep?”

Tony only glared at him with as much hate as he could muster.

One of Ty's men brought in a chair, and placed it at the far wall, beneath the window that led to Clint's room. Ty sat in it, and crossed one leg over the other, staring at Tony.

“So how have you been?” he said conversationally. “Not in the past... well, I'm not going to tell you how long you've been here, but before that. Avengers, huh?”

Tony narrowed his eyes. “Fuck off.”

Stone grinned, but shook his head. “Hey, your choice is between talking to me, or getting more laced food. I will come back though.”

Tony glared at him. He knew it. That explained why he was sick, but it wasn't like he could reject the food. He'd already lost weight, and he knew it. If he wanted to make it out of here, he needed to keep his strength up.

“And what makes you think I believe that. That you won't lace my food if I talk to you?”

Ty shrugged. “Not like you've got much choice.”

_No,_ Tony sighed.  _I don't._

“Yeah,” he said flippantly. “Avengers. Aliens, monsters, gods, that sort of thing.”

Ty grinned. “Yeah. Thor. What's he all about? Is he really from another planet?”

Tony shrugged. “Not entirely sure.” Which was true. Thor was from another realm, but he was still foggy on the details. He wasn't sure if Asgard was a planet in the universe somewhere, or if it was in a different universe. He certainly wasn't going to share that information though.

Ty eyed him, but nodded slightly and moved on.

“How about Captain America? Is he the real deal, or a stand in?”

Tony considered it. He wasn't sure how much of Steve's existence remained classified, if any, but his identity was public knowledge, even if the public refused to believe it. Tony didn't blame them. They'd grown up with Captain America as a legend, not as a historical figure, and even then, historical figures don't come back to life.

“Real deal,” he confirmed. “Some sort of secret government project from way back then.”

Ty didn't say anything for a minute. “How did he survive?” he said finally.

Tony shrugged. “Dunno. They don't tell me everything.”

 

Ty was on his feet in a flash, his hand at Tony's neck before he could even realize what was going on.

_Stupid, slow idiot,_ he berated. Ty's hand was clenched around his windpipe, cutting off the air supply. Tony was too tired and weak to fight him.

“Tony Stark,” he said kindly, “You are Iron Man. Do you really expect me to believe that you don't know how Captain America survived?”

He raised an eyebrow as Tony's vision faded around the edges. “And even more, did you really think I  _didn't_ know?”

Tony had to admit that was a good point before he passed out.

 


	4. Chapter 4

He woke up on his mattress and realized a few things.

 

Tony would _kill_ for a blanket.

He wasn't even kidding.

Maybe he was.

It would depend on who he was killing. He'd totally kill a criminal, or a terrorist, or an evil alien or something, but that was probably it.

Okay, maybe he wouldn't kill for a blanket.

Another wave of shivers hit him, and he reconsidered.

 

Everything hurt. Some of the pain was more localized, like his ankles, which were raw from the rubbing of the shackles, and his right elbow, which was still make its irritation at hitting the cement under the full weight of his body known. And his throat wasn't too happy with the most recent treatment it had received, being a large hand wrapped around it.

But the pain sort of seeped into the rest of him, and although it wasn't as sharp or defined, he couldn't escape it.

And the shivering certainly didn't help.

 

He was still exhausted. Bone weary exhausted, the kind that came from day long binges in his workshop, or fighting aliens with five arms.

And apparently, kidnapping. And being drugged. Multiple times.

He probably didn't want to know what drugs were in his system, though he couldn't help but be curious.

 

He shivered again, wished for a blanket and some painkillers, but settled for simply going back to sleep.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Tony reconsidered his loathing of the cold when he was confronted with fire.

 

It took him a minute to realize, just coming out of sleep, that the spot of light was a flame.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing, get that away from me!” he said, perhaps a bit hysterically. But there was a man coming at him with a lighter, and honestly, he felt justified in being hysterical.

Tony yanked his arm back and scuttled across the ground to the corner, as far as the shackles would allow him. Probably not his best tactical move, because, oh yeah, he was _cornered_ now, but shackles and everything, so whatever.

 

There was only the one guy and Tony could possibly take him if he tried, but he was the one with the flame, and like every cave person knew, the one with the fire was in charge.

(Plus, he was weakened and sore and disoriented and what he was trying to say was that he didn't have the upper hand.)

 

He lashed out with one foot, catching the man off centre, knocking him sideways, the lighter falling harmlessly to the floor beside him. Tony snatched it before the man could recover, which he did only a second too late.

But then there was the issue of what he could do with it. He could burn the other man, and risk hurting himself, he could destroy it, again risking himself, or he could use it in another way. Like as a diversion.

 

He tossed the lighter across the room in a lazy arc, giving the henchman plenty of time to scramble up from where he'd fallen to catch it.

Tony used his distraction to his advantage, sticking his foot in the man's path and tripping him. He intended to bash him on the head and knock him out, thereby getting himself a hostage, but it didn't work as well as he planned. He misjudged the length of the chain, and the only thing that happened was him slipping on the damp floor, landing on his ass as the man retrieved his lighter and turned his attention back on Tony.

 

“That was a mistake,” he growled, grabbing Tony by the arm and flicking the lighter on underneath it.

The pain was unbearable.

“Carter!” a voice bellowed into the room, and wow, Tony should have considered that there were speakers, why hadn't he considered that?

The haze of shock cleared and the pain hit him, and he remembered why.

 

Fuck, that hurt.

He didn't have a lot of experience with burns before, but he knew that water was his best friend. Thankfully, he had some left over from last night, and he carefully doused the area, sighing at the immediate relief it provided. But there wasn't enough of it, and he knew they wouldn't give him more.

 

The man had gone, possibly to be yelled at, since Tiberius didn't seem to want Tony to be disfigured or permanently harmed. Yet, anyway.

 

Tony used up all the water cooling the burn on his arm, which looked to be second degree, maybe third, not like he knew, because he wasn't a doctor. It was red and angry and hurt like hell, and he was pretty sure that third degree burns weren't supposed to hurt? That would be nice.

He curled back up on his mattress, watching the door suspiciously. No one else came in.

 

Tony's arm ached, and with nothing else to focus on, it demanded most of his attention until he fell into a restless sleep.

 


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning, Tony wondered if they were going down a list of torture methods. Stone and his minions let themselves into his cell, brandishing what looked like cattle prods.

 

“Did you guys Google torture methods and print out the first thing you found? Because let me tell you, not everything Wikipedia says is always true. I mean, once it said that I was born in 1970. Can you believe that?”

They paid him no attention, except for Tiberius, who only grinned at Tony.

“How's the arm?” he asked, sounding not at all concerned.

Tony glanced at the burn. It was still red and angry and ached like a bitch, not that he was going to share that. “Still attached,” he replied flippantly.

“We can fix that if you'd like,” Ty offered.

Tony shrugged. “I think you have other plans.” He looked pointedly at the minions behind him.

Ty smiled. “So we do.”

 

Apparently yesterday's fiasco led them to reconsider. Two of the men grabbed Tony's arms and held him down, the shackles on his ankles taking care of his feet.

He rolled his eyes. Were people really that stupid? Did they even know how electricity worked? It would take the easiest path to the ground, even if it meant going through them.

Whatever. He wasn't going to argue.

 

The remaining two minions and Ty stood above him. He only glared defiantly.

It had never been said that Tony was particularly conscientious when it came to self preservation, and he certainly wasn't going to start now.

“I think it's safe to say this will be a new experience for everyone involved,” he noted cheerfully.

Of course, it had also never been said that Tony didn't genuinely care about his continued existence. (Okay, except for that one period when he was already dying. And to save all of New York. So maybe it had been said. Whatever. That wasn't the point.)

The thing was, Tony didn't actually want to die, or be tortured. But he didn't know how to make himself stop shoving his foot in his mouth every time he opened it.

 

Which probably got him into a lot of these situations, he noted upon reflection.

But in the midst of a torture session was not the best time to be ruminating on his life and his choices, and the cattle prod to his shoulder so eloquently reminded him of that.

 

It hurt, of course. It hurt going through him, and his muscles ached as they tensed with the current passing through them. The electricity made his body arch and dance in ways that he couldn't stop. He knew how muscles worked, how the nervous system functioned, and in the end it all came down to electricity. Electricity that was being applied forcefully, overruling any messages his brain was sending, no matter how determined they may be.

 

They did it over and over and over, to the point where he thought he'd pass out, or maybe just wished he would.

But mostly all he could think about was what they were doing to Clint.


	6. Chapter 6

He must have passed out at some point, because he was still alive, and no longer being held down.

It was a nice change.

Until he tried to move, and everything in him protested.

 

Not like he needed to do that anyway. Nope.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He did have to move eventually, when food was thrown at him, and water, which he mostly used to sooth the burn on his arm, which was angry at being ignored, as well as all the attention it had gotten. Tony just couldn't win.

 

They left him alone for what he assumed was the rest of the day, and he spent it trying to sleep, and failing.

He still didn't know what they were doing to Clint, but he didn't think he could stand up to check.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ty really liked torturing Tony.

Like, sure, there was the whole 'wanting to punish Tony for what his father did' thing that he'd been quoting since they started, but he took it to a whole new level. A sadistic level, where he seemed to just enjoy torturing for the sake of torture.

So yeah, Tony was not at all okay with that.

 

Apparently he'd heard of Tony's time in Afghanistan, since he started with the waterboarding. And Tony knew it wasn't actually waterboarding, but both of them involved nearly drowning and he was too cold to try and and remember what it was actually called, so that's the word that kept flashing through his mind when Stone's henchmen (which is a ridiculous term, but he honestly couldn't think of a better one) kept shoving his head under water.

 

This time he didn't have a battery powering his heart, but it was still just as bad, and Tony couldn't always time his gasps perfectly to avoid inhaling water. More than once he awoke to find himself lying on his back, the henchmen and water gone, but his chest aching.

The thought that they did CPR scared him more than the idea that they just left him there to die. Because CPR with the arc reactor was a very bad idea, and Tony could only pray that nothing had been damaged.

He would cough up water for hours after that, and every movement only hurt his ribs even more.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um. Whoops. Exam time?  
> Really, there's no excuse, because I've got the whole thing written.  
> *winces* Have a bonus chapter to make up for it?


	7. Chapter 7

Tony knew a lot about torture, probably more than was healthy. But after Afghanistan, he foolishly figured that if he could desensitize himself to it, that he wouldn't have as many issues or nightmares. So he did research, he did readings.

He found out that the so called 'no touch torture' had become favoured in recent years because it didn't leave a physical mark. The psychological scars that it left were an entirely different matter.

He also knew that torture was terribly ineffective at actually extracting information.

It was a good thing Ty didn't want any information then. He just wanted to hurt Tony.

And Tony had to say, he was succeeding.

 

But what Tony was trying to say was that he recognized everything that Tiberius was doing. The sleep deprivation, the isolation, temperature extremes, both sensory bombardment and isolation... honestly, it seemed like he was going down the list.

(The only thing he had ignored completely was the sexual assault and humiliation. Tony wasn't sure why that was, but suspected that Ty was even more uncomfortable with the thought than Tony was. Possibly some deep seated internal homophobia going on there.)

 

But Ty didn't just limit himself to the psychological. He also wanted to make Tony hurt, to make him bleed and suffer and gasp for air.

 

He hadn't been able to keep track of time very well (another psychological torture method, time disorientation), but it was likely some time in the second week when he lost two of his fingernails off his left hand. The man Ty sent in showed no pleasure in ripping them out while Tony stifled his gasps.

 

Professional then, Tony reflected later that evening, trying not to focus on the blood.

 

 

* * *

 

 

During some of the worst torture sessions, Tony plotted out ways to kill Ty. Most of them involved Hulk and fire, although not at the same time. The big guy wasn't so fond of fire.

During the very worst torture sessions, the ones where Tony only wished he could pass out from the pain just so that it would end, he mapped out the ways he could kill himself in his concrete room. They were surprisingly limited, but he was Tony fucking Stark, and he could do it if he wanted to.

That was the problem though, he really didn't want to. He'd been there before, he'd thought about it, had even gone so far as to plan it, but not like this.

This was only for a last resort.

Because he'd finally gotten his life together. He was happy. Full stop. He had team members, _friends,_ he saved the world every other week, but not on Tuesdays, and he had a great company that was making the world a better place.

He was happy.

But then kidnapping happened, and Tony just might sink back that low to consider it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Tony liked to think he had a high pain tolerance, or at least higher than most people. It was more out of experience than anything else, because he'd been hurt so often before that he had to become desensitized to it.

But torture was torture, and it still hurt.

 

Days went by where no one bothered him, where he was simply fed and watered like a plant, and left alone with his thoughts and injuries from previous days. Of course, Tony was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and could never quite relax.

On those days he watched Clint most of the time, the man who may or may not have been real, pacing around his own tiny room.

 

Some days were entirely normal, at least as normal as they could be considering, and it only made the days that followed worse.

 

Tony had experienced pain before. He'd had open heart surgery without anesthesia, he'd broken bones that were never properly set, he'd torn muscles and ligaments and dislocated joints. He'd survived heavy metal poisoning, near cardiac arrest multiple times (and occasionally actual cardiac arrest), and drownings.

But the memory of pain fades with time, and nothing is ever quite as bad as the pain you experience in that moment.


	8. Chapter 8

Tony had been foolishly thinking that it would only be a matter of hours before he was rescued. Of course, then he realized that there was three days of growth on his face, and that he hadn't been rescued yet.

 

Time went on. He couldn't tell how much, because there were no longer nights and days in his personal hell. He tried to keep track using his beard growth, but sometimes he would wake up and his face was shaved. He knew that they'd been drugging him, but it wasn't like he could refuse food and water, not for very long anyway.

 

That unnerved him though, the thought that they had access to his body, to do whatever they wanted to him. His brain balked at the thought of that, and it send a violent shiver through his entire body. He refused to think what else could have happened, because it could have been anything. The arc reactor could have been taken out, they could have injected him with any number of things, they could have carved him up, they could have raped him-

Tony cut himself off.

 _It doesn't matter,_ he told himself. _I have to move forward._

It wouldn't do to dwell on things that might have happened in the past, not when he had so much to worry about in his future.

 

* * *

 

Tiberius Stone was one sneaky son of a bitch, Tony had to give him that much. That was always the problem with him from the beginning, he was too smart for his own good.

 

Sometime after Tony woke up from his drug induced nap, Ty waltzed in with a laptop.

“How are you this fine morning?” he chirped, looking positively cheerful. God, it made Tony sick. The bastard was wearing a full suit and everything. Did he dress up simply to visit Tony? How much of the torture was he even watching? Tony had noticed the camera on his first sweep of the room, but he didn't know if it was... well, if it was for business or pleasure.

Tony only stared at him.

“...Right,” Ty said finally, rolling his eyes. “Obviously someone needs some cheering up. I've got a movie that you might like.”

He sat on the other side of the room, underneath the glass that led to Clint's room. He sat the laptop in front of him, facing Tony. Stone hit the play button.

 

The footage on the screen was dark, and hard to make out, but Tony recognized the room he was in. He could also make out the glow of the arc reactor.

He watched as the arc reactor was removed from his body. He watched himself begin to die, moaning in pain, even in his unconsciousness. He watched as he nearly went into cardiac arrest before the reactor was put back in.

 

He watched it happen, over and over and over and over...

 

At some point, the images on the screen turned into the memories of what Obie had done to him at home in Malibu. He could feel the pain in his chest, the irregular heartbeat in his ears. He could feel himself dying, over and over and over...

 

 

* * *

 

 

He came back to himself slowly.

He'd never dissociated that badly before, even with everything else that had happened, with his multiple near death experiences, even after Manhattan and the nightmares that plagued him for months. He'd never gone so far out of himself that he lost time like that.

He wondered if part of it was the drugs he'd been given, but he didn't know. Couldn't know.

Hated that.

 

Hated even more that he'd given Ty the satisfaction of seeing him that way.

 

He'd rather slowly bleed to death from a thousand paper cuts than he would have his heart taken out again.


	9. Chapter 9

Tony foolishly figured that he would be able to get kidnapped without freaking the fuck out, or getting sick.

 

Needless to say, both happened, in relative proximity to each other.

 

* * *

 

During another session of not-waterboarding, Tony had a fucking unreal (by which he meant entirely real, so real that it shouldn't have been possible, because he was literally back in the cave) flashback.

 

He couldn't feel the battery, it wasn't in his arms. If it wasn't in his arms, it meant they'd taken it away and the shrapnel was moving under his skin and his heart would soon just sort of skip a beat and stop, giving up like the rest of him wanted to and was also entirely resistant to.

“I'll do it,” he sobbed, when they pulled his head out of the water. “I'll make you your missile.”

They either didn't hear him or ignored him, because he didn't even have a chance to gulp in air before his head was submerged again.

 

* * *

 

He woke up some time later, his chest aching and his head pounding. His muscles were aching from lying on the cold floor, but he didn't really have the energy to do anything about it.

He fell asleep again.

 

* * *

 

His own coughing woke him up next, which was an interesting development. It hurt like hell, which wasn't good. It didn't just hurt because the shaking of his chest rubbed against the metal of the arc reactor, because that was normal, if unfortunate. It hurt deep inside his lungs, every time he took a breath. It hurt where he shouldn't have been able to feel anything.

Not a good sign.

 

He managed to sleep, even with the lights on, but it wasn't for long enough.

Hell, even if he slept for days straight, if he woke up and was still in the cave, it wouldn't be long enough. He would only accept waking up somewhere safe. Otherwise, what was the point?

 

* * *

 

The lights didn't go off anytime soon. Clint wasn't in his room during that time. Tony didn't know where they'd taken him.

Hell, he still wasn't entirely sure that Clint had been there to begin with.

Tony considered that the wall between them was soundproofed, which explained why Clint couldn't hear him yelling, but he'd tossed a plate at it one day. (He was thoroughly punished for that.) Even if it was completely soundproof, the impact would have transferred through.

But Clint didn't stir.

And Tony wanted to believe that he was real, he really did, but he had to ask himself, what was the point? Ty wasn't torturing him. Tony did honestly believe that this was simply about revenge and nothing else. Clint had nothing to do with it. And if Tony's reputation was to be believed, he simply didn't care about any of his team members well enough for them to be used as leverage. If anyone was taken to get to him, it should have been Pepper.

But he didn't know.

 

During the periods when the lights remained on, Clint was nowhere to be found, and Tony didn't know if that meant they'd done something with him, or if he'd just stopped imagining him.

 

* * *

 

They continued with the constant light, because why not. Tony knew what they were playing at. He understood the science. But just because he knew what the lights were doing on didn't mean he could do anything about it. He couldn't sleep between the light and the cold, and spent most of his time curled up on his mattress shivering and attempting to conserve heat.

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

Tony had been going on a day and a half without sleep when he started to hallucinate for sure. It was hard to keep track of time, especially considering there was no day/night cycle in his dark room, but he made do. He hadn't eaten for two days, but he couldn't avoid drinking the water he was given. He knew that he was already close to being dehydrated, and could hear Steve scolding him.

 

He could explain the reasons behind the hallucinations (or at least hypothesize about them, since he wasn't sure which one it was), but that didn't mean he could rationalize them away.

 

Yinsen appeared first, the same way Tony had last seen him. He was covered in his own blood.

_It should have been mine..._

Tony blinked.

“You're not real,” he whispered. “You're a hallucination. You're dead; I watched you die.”

Yinsen nodded at him. “I did. But you didn't listen, did you Stark? With my dying breath I told you not to waste it, and what are you doing? _Nothing,”_ he hissed, and Tony winced out of the sheer amount of shame that statement fostered.

Tony squeezed his eyes tightly together. “I'm sorry,” he whispered.

 

“You should be.”

The voice sent chills down Tony's spine, and his eyes shot open.

_No. No, he's dead too, I killed him myself._

“Obie,” he whispered, the man standing there in front of him, grin wolfish.

“You didn't think you got rid of me, did you Tony?” he asked softly, moving around the couch where Tony sat paralyzed. It was happening all over again.

“I'm going to have to work harder this time, aren't I?” he murmured, ripping Tony's shirt open to expose the arc reactor.

Tony was helpless, just like he'd been the first time, but this time there was no spare reactor in the basement, because he was in a fucking dungeon...

Right. He was in a dungeon, not in his Malibu house. This wasn't real.

Tony squeezed his eyes shut and willed Obie to disappear.

 

“Oh Tony... Tesoro mio...”

Tony could almost feel the hand caress his cheek as she said it, which was impossible, because she was dead.

They all were.

“Bambino,” she sighed, and Tony opened his eyes to see his mother.

“I'm not a child anymore,” he grumbled.

She smiled sadly, and he knew that she was a hallucination because she hadn't aged. She looked the same as he remembered before she died, tired and fair and full of hope that he never got to see.

She stroked his cheek again, and he closed his eyes to lean into the touch.

“Be strong, mio caro,” she whispered.

Tony felt, rather than saw, her disappear, and it almost made him sad.

_I'll try,_ he thought.

 

Tony had to blink a couple of times before he could make sense of the figure in front of him. His vision still wasn't great, but he could recognize who it was from the clothes. Sweatpants (these ones tied, thank god, since there'd been more than one incident in the Tower where Clint's pants had fallen down, and wow, Tony should not think about that) and a shirt with a purple bullseye on it.

Tony smiled. Clint liked purple. It was endearing, probably in a way that it shouldn't have been, but hey, he was concussed and cold and he could think whatever the hell he wanted.

“Where's your sweater?” he mumbled, shifting slightly so he could get a better look at the figure.

Sitting up, he realized the answer to his own question.

Clint's sweater, or at least what was left of it, since it had been torn and ripped and dirtied in a number of places, was draped over Tony as a blanket.

 


	11. Chapter 11

He might have passed out a little bit, he blamed the low blood pressure and getting up too fast, but when he woke up, Clint was still there. Right above him in fact.

 

“Clint!” Tony chirped. He'd never been happier to see a hallucination in his life. Because by god, if he was going to die in here, he didn't want to do it alone.

Even if he was sort of, technically.

Whatever.

Clint looked at him sadly.

“I swear to you Tony, I am real. I'm real and I'm here, and they are coming. The Avengers will come to rescue us. And until they do, I will be here.”

Tony nodded.

Of course they would.

And of course his mind would tell him that.

It was nice that it was comforting him for once.

He still didn't believe that Clint was real though. It would be too nice.

He sighed, which was a mistake, since it turned into a cough, which turned into-

 

* * *

 

He might have drifted in and out a bit, because when he woke up next, Clint was curled around him.

“Tactile hallucination,” he nodded sagely. “Course. Why not?”

He sighed contently, loving the warmth his brain was providing through the hallucination. Honestly, if he was going to die, he was going to do it comfortably.

He ignored when Clint tried to talk to him. He didn't have anything to say to himself.

 

* * *

 

When he floated back to consciousness, Clint was explaining that he was deaf, and that he was sorry he'd never told him before, but he'd never really gotten around to it.

“S'not true,” he slurred. “You would have told me before. Yeah. Cause we're friends, right?” He frowned at Clint, certain that his answer was very important. Clint seemed surprised to find him awake, which was weird, because his existence should begin and end with Tony waking up and falling asleep.

Clint shook his head, and Tony's heart, or maybe it was the arc reactor, hard to tell them apart, sank.

“Oh,” he said, closing his eyes. “I think I'm gonna sleep for a bit. You let me know if someone comes, kay?” he asked, which was hilarious, because hallucinations ceased to exist when you weren't around to hallucinate them.

He giggled, which amused him even more than whatever he was giggling about in the first place.

He drifted off to hallucination Clint telling him that he wasn't shaking his head at him...

 

* * *

 

“Tony?”

Tony sighed loudly in response.

“Of course we're friends you idiot. I can't read your lips when you slur and mumble and don't look at me, especially in this light. God, you're such a drama queen.”

Tony felt happier after that for some reason.

 

* * *

 

The voice was too loud, and Tony didn't know why.

“C'mon Pep,” he moaned, brushing his hand lazily in the direction of the voice. “Lemme sleep...” he sighed.

“Tony?”

It wasn't Pepper's voice, but that was all Tony could determine before he fell asleep again.

 

* * *

 

Tony woke up because he was shivering.

Fuck it was cold, why was it so cold?

First Afghanistan, which you'd think would be hot, and it was, during the day and in the sun, but not at night in the cave, that was fucking cold, and now Tony was in a dungeon somewhere freezing his ass off, and as soon as he got out of there he was going to climate control the entire fucking world, because he was Tony Stark, and it seemed like a good idea.

He drifted.

 

* * *

 

“Jesus, you're burning up,” someone told him.

“Nooo,” he sighed. “M'cold.”

Because, duh, he was freezing. Anyone could tell that.

He shivered again to make a point.

 

* * *

 

“ _... in a New York State of mind...”_ Clint sang. He was pretty good, but Tony was sort of starved for entertainment, seeing as how he was in a freaking dungeon.

“If you're a 'llucination, you should be singing my favourite songs,” Tony pouted. “Not... whatever the hell that is.”

Clint didn't even pause in his singing to listen.

Ugh, his hallucination was totally deaf. He couldn't even have a good hallucination, like Pepper, or science time with Bruce, or even a puppy or something.

He sighed, but fell back asleep to the singing that was only slightly off tune.

Tony wasn't sure he'd even heard the song before. He was asleep before he could ponder what that meant.


	12. Chapter 12

When Tony woke up next, it was not because he was shivering, or coughing, or anything boring like that. It wasn't even because hallucination Clint was singing to him.

Nope, his hallucinations had gone from slight alterations to his reality to completely rewriting it.

Because yeah, that had to be the only explanation for why he was staring at a bit of an explosion from a not at all comfortable position draped over Clint's shoulder.

“P'me down,” he mumbled to hallucination Clint, who really, shouldn't have needed to be spoken to, since he was Tony's subconscious or whatever.

Clint totally didn't listen, and Tony attempted to hit him, but there was a lot of blood rushing to his head and everything hurt and also it was cold, so it maybe didn't happen.

 

* * *

 

When he drifted back next, it wasn't to the dungeon that he'd been kept in for the past whatever. Close, but not quite. This place was more of a hollow in the side of a cliff, not even deep enough to be called a cave.

And Tony was... warm. Which was weird. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been warm. Certainly it was before this whole kidnapping thing.

Maybe he was in the stage of hypothermia where he couldn't feel anything anymore. Maybe he was numb, and not actually warm.

He nodded to himself. That made more sense.

 

“Tony?” Clint asked, appearing in his line of sight.

Tony squinted at him. Still hallucinating then, which was unfortunate. But if he was so cold that he was feeling warm, and hallucinating, then he was pretty close to dying.

Pepper was gonna kill him.

Tony sighed, and closed his eyes again.

 

“Hey, Tony, look at me,” the hallucination urged, shaking Tony gently. It hurt.

Tony really had no clue why he was being so demanding, but obeyed. He squinted at Clint again. He looked the same as he had before in the earlier hallucinations, same shirt and sweatpants. His sweater was still missing, and he looked dirtier. His hair was a mess, which was normal, but his one eye was darkened and his face was peppered with small scratches and cuts.

“Sup,” he said, rolling the word around in his mouth. His tongue felt heavy, and his throat was dry.

Clint sagged with relief.

“Fuck, Tony, don't do that.”

Tony frowned. What had he done now? “What?”

Clint rolled his eyes. “I can't actually hear you, and it's a bit dark in here to read lips, but I'm assuming you either denied doing anything, or can't remember what you did.”

Tony needed a minute to process that, but Clint didn't give him the time, just continued talking.

“We're not in the castle of that guy anymore. When he moved us into the same cell, and still denied my existence to you, because apparently there was some mind fuckery going on before that where he tried to convince you I didn't exist, I started plotting. You were no help during the entire thing, what with being concussed and broken and sick, which you still are by the way. I think your fever finally broke now, which is why you're awake. But don't do that again, seriously. You've been having nightmares and moaning and sometimes you try to attack me and it's just...” he sighed. “The rest of the team would kill me if anything happened to you. Or Pepper. I think I'm more afraid of Pepper than I am of Steve or Bruce to be honest.”

Tony blinked.

That was a lot to process, and thinking was like wading through molasses (which he had done before, or at least the equivalent of, freaking aliens) so it took him a minute to come to a conclusion.

That either, one, he was still hallucinating, and still in the cement prison, and all this was a hallucination right before he was about to die. Or two, that what Clint was telling him was true, that he was deaf, and the entire thing had been an elaborate setup by Stone to try and make Tony lose his mind.

 

One of them was obviously preferable.

 

He nodded sagely, closing his eyes again. “Cool,” he mumbled, attempting to make his hand into a thumbs up sign, but his limbs were very far from his brain, and he was super tired, and it might not have happened before he drifted off to sleep again.


	13. Chapter 13

“...I mean, I hated you for a while, just on principle. You were rich and you used to make weapons, so honestly, it was hard to like you. Plus, you're annoying. But I found out that you're annoying in the best, or maybe it's the worst, sort of way. I couldn't help but like you after that, god help me...”

 

“...I'm glad you're not awake for this, because I'm sure you'd have an inexhaustible number of jokes to make about it. I'm sure I'll still get to hear them eventually. And maybe I'll be ready for them. But not...”

 

“... and then she shot me. But not anywhere vital. So I shot her back, but used a tranquilizer arrow. She was a bit caught off guard by that. But man, you should have seen Coulson's face when I brought her home... I guess I have a thing for strays...”

 

“... I mean, Coulson nearly flipped when they found him in the ice. Like, seriously. It was the closest I've ever seen him to showing emotions in front of anyone. I mean, he shows emotions in his own way, but this was like, a full fledged emotional reaction like you'd see from Darcy. Have I ever told you about the time those two met? Let me tell you...”

 

“... it had never been that great, what with getting beat up all the time as a kid, but sonic arrows going off close to your head? They really don't help. I thought I was done with SHIELD then, but Coulson is awesome, which a lot of people don't get. He's hilarious too, if you can get his humour. But he set me up with...”

 

“... getting cold now too. Tasha and I kind of swore to never tell you about Budapest, just because it would annoy you, but I'm gonna tell you, it was freezing when we were there. Like, risk of losing toes and fingers cold. I don't really like being cold cause it reminds me of that mission. And believe me, it was the mission from hell...”

 

“... fuck Tony, don't do this to me...”

 

“... you asshole! Come on Tony...”

 


	14. Chapter 14

The first thing Tony noticed was that breathing wasn't painful anymore.

Not even the usual amount of pain, which meant he was either dead, or on heavy duty painkillers.

 

Given his most recent memories, which were a giant blank, he couldn't be sure which it was. Hm...

He sighed.

 

A hand gripped his.

“Tony?”

Not dead. Cool.

He hummed in the direction the voice was coming from.

“Hey, Tony, can you open your eyes.”

Ah, yes. He knew there was something he'd forgotten.

 

It took an enormous amount of effort, but he managed to do it. It was bright, and took him a minute to adjust, but he finally recognized the figure standing next to him, the one apparently holding his hand, as Steve.

Well, this was awkward.

 

“Ungh,” he managed to say, and to be honest, he wasn't expecting much more than that.

“Do you need some ice chips?” Steve offered.

Ugh, no, he did not need ice chips, he needed a real drink. Like root beer. God Steve.

 

He shrugged, because he didn't have enough words to say that. He opened his mouth to accept the spoon of ice chips, and he had to admit it did help, enough for him to speak.

“W'happened?”

Mostly speak, anyway.

 

“What do you remember?” someone else asked.

Tony turned his head to look at the source of the sound. Clint was hovering in the doorway, looking somewhat anxious, but better than the last time Tony had seen him.

And ouch, the memories came crashing back, the cell and maybe Clint and torture and... snow? Was there snow?

He must have made a face, because Clint laughed at him, and shuffled into the room.

Steve produced another chair from somewhere, who knows, maybe the man had magic pockets to other dimensions, that was something to look into, and oh yes he was definitely on the good drugs.

He giggled, and wow, that should not be allowed to happen, ever.

 

“They've got you on the good stuff,” Natasha commented, striding into the room. Tony narrowed his eyes at her. It was totally not fair for the super spy to see him in this condition. She already had enough blackmail material for dozens of lifetimes.

Natasha only smirked at him, but it faded rapidly.

She swatted him on the head. “Don't ever do that again.”

“What?” he protested.

“Getting kidnapped.” She spun around to glare at Clint. “Same goes for you.”

“I've already been yelled at,” he protested. “Tony's been unconscious. It's his turn.”

Tony blinked, and let that filter through his brain.

“Clint... was there?” he said finally.

Steve looked at him with concern. “Yes Tony. Clint was taken along with you. Did you forget?”

Tony shook his head, and ignored how much that hurt.

“They told me he wasn't real. And when I started hallucinating...”

“You assumed that he was also a hallucination,” Natasha finished.

Tony nodded at her gratefully.

She softened slightly.

 

Tony glanced around the room. “Where's everyone else?”

Natasha sat herself down on the edge of Tony's bed. “Thor is off world, maybe in Asgard, or maybe not, we can never be sure. Pepper is on her way back, since we just managed to convince her to go home and sleep before you woke up. Bruce is... around. And Sam and Bucky are back at home. They figured they'd wait a while before they came to see you.”

Tony closed his eyes and hummed happily. Everyone was safe. Everyone was good.

Probably.

He opened his eyes to stare at Clint. “You're okay?” he asked.

Clint frowned at him. “Yeah man. I'm not the one who was tortured, repeatedly from what the doctors said.”

“Tony?”

Tony turned to the door again, and beamed at Bruce.

“Hey buddy! How's big green?”

Bruce frowned. “He's mad at you for being kidnapped, but not as mad as he is at the kidnappers.”

Tony nodded. “So what's the damage?”

Bruce sighed, but picked up the chart from the end of the bed and moved up beside Tony.

“You've got a lovely burn to your arm, second degree. It should heal up pretty well, even considering. Your electrolytes were way off when you got here, but they're nearly back to normal now. You're underweight again, more than usual now. There's a hairline fracture on the proximal end of your ulna, but it's already fused back together, so it's good that it wasn't displaced.” He brought the x-rays up for Tony to see while he spoke, but Tony did not have any skills in deciphering them, and only nodded to appease his friend. “The most pressing thing was the pneumonia and high fever, which we managed to get under control, even if it did take longer than we would have liked.”

“Huh,” Tony noted. “That actually makes a lot of sense.”

Bruce frowned at him, but didn't comment.

“You also had a lot of strange markings that I couldn't identify at first, but I think they were a result of an electric current being applied. Would I be correct?”

Tony nodded. He didn't miss the way Clint flinched in the corner, or the way Natasha's muscles tightened almost imperceptibly.

Steve's hand gripped him tighter.

 

Bruce nodded back at him.

“Okay. That's about it. There were also some traces of drugs in your system, and analysis of your hair said the same thing. We're still working on identifying them though. I also noticed the...” he motioned to the back of his neck.

Tony raised a hand to feel where the tracker had once been. “Oh yeah. I almost forgot about that.”

“It's healed up nicely, and the small scar will fade.”

He hesitated before speaking again.

“We didn't find any signs of sexual abuse, but that doesn't mean...”

Tony shook his head firmly. “No. That was the one thing that didn't happen. I swear. It's just... no.” He shook his head again for emphasis.

Bruce examined him, but nodded. “I believe you. Is there anything else that you want to tell me? Any injuries that I may have missed?”

“Yeah, how are my ankles?”

Last Tony remembered of them, they were still encased in shackles, and he could almost still feel the weight of them.

Bruce flipped the sheet up that was covering Tony's feet to reveal his ankles swathed in bandages, which would explain why he still felt the weight.

“They're bandaged. There was quite a lot of chafing, but nothing too terrible. They should heal without scarring, if that's what you're worried about.”

It wasn't really, but Tony nodded at Bruce.

It was then that he suddenly remembered that he was exhausted, and slouched back into the pillows.

 

“You should probably sleep,” Bruce told him gently. “Are you in any pain?”

“Not really,” he mumbled.

There might have been more talking, but he missed it.

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am soo sorry for the wait. Seriously, someone should have just yelled at me to remind me to update.

When he woke up next it was dark in his room, and it was empty except for Clint.

His breath caught in his throat before he remembered where he was, and that slight sound must have woken Clint, because he was at Tony's side in an instant.

 

“Sorry,” he muttered, feeling foolish about the whole thing. “Um, can you hear me?”

Even in the dim light, Tony could see Clint roll his eyes. “Yes Tony. With the hearing aids my hearing is fairly good. After all, you didn't know.”

Tony shrugged, then winced, because it hurt.

“Do you want me to get Bruce?” Clint asked, his hand already reaching out for the call button.

“No,” Tony breathed. “I'll be okay.” He didn't want to be drugged any more.

 

The darkness was filled only with silence for the next few moments.

 

“How did we get out?” Tony asked finally.

 

Clint dragged a chair over to the bedside, wincing as it scraped along the ground. “Well, when you got feverish and sick and startled talking to yourself, they tossed me in with you. I hadn't seen you the entire time, and to be honest, I wasn't entirely sure you were still alive.”

“I could see you,” Tony mumbled. “Sometimes. Through the glass.”

Clint glanced at him. “Huh.”

“They told me you weren't real.”

Clint nodded once, slowly, before frowning deeply. “That was why... afterwards, when I was in there with you, why you didn't think I was real.”

Tony sighed. “Yeah. I wasn't sure about you at first, and I still had hope that you were real. But when I had other hallucinations, and you showed up right afterwards, well... it was a bit difficult to deny then.”

“I'm still not sure why they thought putting us together was a good idea.”

Tony scoffed. “Ty's always been clever, but sometimes he is too clever for his own good. That was probably his downfall.”

“Was,” Clint corrected.

Tony blinked at him. “What?”

“You used present tense. If he was one of the people in that building, then he's dead.”

Tony wasn't convinced. “Like I said, he's clever,” he sighed.

“Was he the one behind the whole thing?” Clint asked softly.

“Yeah,” Tony sighed. “It was a personal vendetta. Sorry that you got caught up in all of that.”

Clint snorted. “Yeah, because it was totally your fault.”

Tony frowned. Was Clint agreeing with him, or just being sarcastic? He had a much better bullshit detector when he wasn't high.

What were they talking about again?

“You wanted to know how we got out,” Clint supplied, because apparently he'd been talking out loud again. Whoops.

“Yeah,” Tony muttered, waving a hand lazily to tell Clint to go on.

“So they put us together. To be honest, you weren't making a whole lot of sense during that time...”

 

Tony faded in and out for a bit. He couldn't help it. He really did want to hear Clint explain how he got them out, because from what he recalled, there'd been an explosion that he couldn't account for, and also the obvious lack of shackles around his ankles.

But he had been through a lot, and was really tired.

He perked up when he heard the words 'explosion' and 'carried' in close proximity.

 

“What?” he said blearily. “I missed that last bit.”

'Last bit' meaning since around the part when Tony started hallucinating, but he wasn't going to specify that.

Clint rolled his eyes. “In summary, I used all my super spy powers and carried your feverish ass out of there.”

Ah, that was the part that Tony remembered. Being upside down staring at an explosion.

“You... carried me? All that way?”

Clint looked uncomfortable. “Yeah man.”

Tony was unbelievably amused by that.

He giggled, again, seriously he had to stop doing that.

 

“How come you didn't tell me you were deaf?” he asked, and oh, now he was sad. So very sad. He was blaming the medications for that.

Clint shrugged. “I kind of forget it's a thing. Nat knows, and Coulson, and a few other people, but it's not that big of a deal. Or I'd like to not make it such a big deal.”

“You not making it a big deal made it one,” Tony pointed out, because his hazy logic was flawless.

Clint was smart enough to agree. “Yeah, I'm sorry about that.”

Tony ignored him, because he was allergic to emotions.

“I'm going to make you hearing aids that no one will ever be able to detect. I'll make ones we can implant, so they can't be taken out. I'll make something...” he mumbled, forgetting what he was going to say.

Clint patted his hand. “Of course you will. But just remember that when you invent things on no sleep, they don't turn out well. You rest for now.”

That was actually a very clever idea.

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Yeah.”

 


	16. Chapter 16

He was drowning, all over again.

What the fuck did they want, _honestly,_ he'd already agreed to build their missile, were they doing it for sport now?

 

“Tony!” Pepper screeched, and he saw the arc all over again, miniaturized just for him, and well torture was good for something it turned out. _Inspiration._

He'd be happy to never be inspired again in his life if it meant he could stop this _drowning..._

 

He awoke with a start, choking on nothing but the memories.

Or maybe something, he did have pneumonia after all, and Bruce seemed to be a bit concerned, although not green, which was nice.

 

“Breathe Tony,” Steve ordered, and well, who was going to disobey Captain America at his finest?

(Not Tony, because he'd done it before, and he felt guilty for at least a week.)

He obeyed, gulping in large lungfuls of air, ignoring how it made the arc reactor casing rub against his ribs.

 

When his vision cleared (and he hadn't even noticed it wasn't), most of the team was hovering around him, and the mask on his face was annoying.

He shoved it to the side and plastered on a smile.

“Oops,” he grinned.

Steve shook his head. “Not an oops Tony.”

Bruce's fingers grasped Tony's wrist to check his pulse, never mind that the machines attached to him could do it just as well.

“I'm fine,” he insisted, wincing as an alarm went off behind him, ruining the moment.

Natasha slipped the mask back on his face.

“Oh definitely,” she agreed. “That's why you woke up from a nightmare unable to breathe. It was a nightmare, wasn't it.”

Tony glared at her. In the corner, Clint was watching the proceedings.

“ _I see better from a distance,_ ” his voice echoed through Tony's head.

 

Tony shrugged. “I've been through a lot. I think I'm entitled to have a few bad dreams.”

He didn't miss Bruce slipping a needle into an IV port, but didn't comment.

“No one's saying that you're not,” Steve assured him. “But you are still sick.”

“M'not,” he huffed, just because he could.

Steve rolled his eyes, and Clint snickered.


	17. Chapter 17

“Am I too damaged?” Tony wondered out loud, and immediately wished he could kick himself, because even the drugs were no excuse for the things coming out of his mouth.

Clint looked startled.

Thankfully, he was the only one in the room. Tony didn't know where the others went, or when they left. He wasn't even sure if he'd fallen asleep, or just hadn't been paying attention.

 

“Sorry, ignore me,” he muttered.

Clint only seemed more uncomfortable by the statement.

“Do you... want to talk about it?” he offered.

Tony shrugged. He did, but he also didn't.

 

They were both quiet for a while. “How long was it?” Tony asked quietly. “I know you won't lie to me, and really, what would the point be, because I'm not stupid, but no one has let me see anything at all-”

“24 days,” Clint interrupted.

Tony let that sink in for a moment. “Oh,” he whispered. He really wasn't sure what he expected.

“And you've been mostly unconscious for the last seven,” Clint added. “Between you being in hospital now, and delirious before, it's been seven days.”

Tony frowned. “Okay.”

He was quiet for a bit, just thinking about what had happened during all those days. Pepper would have been frantic. Jarvis would have been busy scanning the entire world for him as well as reassuring the other bots that he would come back.

(Just like he'd done the last times. And Tony hadn't let them down yet.)

 

“No, okay, I do want to talk about it,” he decided, struggling to push himself into a more upright position. “Because this is like, the third time I've been tortured, and I'm only talking major events here, not including all the other things that have happened over the years, cause we're not even going to get into those.”

He frowned, because, ew, feelings, why was he doing this again, and with Clint of all people?

_Because he was there. Because of what happened with Loki. Because of whatever the hell happened before to make him into who he is now._

 

He pressed forward. “At what point do you get too broken to be put back together in any normal sort of way?”

Clint looked grossly uncomfortable, but Tony kept on going. “Clint, I have literally been fucked up since the moment I was born. I mean, honestly, look at who my parents were. I never had a chance. And things really didn't get better, you know, nature and nurture, one can kind of balance out the other, but nope, scales were tipped way not in my favour.” He sighed, and willed himself to shut up, but his mouth had other plans.

“And what does it tell you that getting kidnapped was one of the best things that could have ever happened to me. The first time anyway. Because that turned my life around completely, because let's be honest, I was a complete dick before.”

“You're still a dick.”

“I'm not done. But what does that tell you that it was the most defining experience of my life? I'm fucked up Clint, seriously, and I don't know if I can ever go back to being normal, or even anything close to normal.”

Clint shrugged. “Fuck normal. I grew up in a circus Tony. One of us is a god. No one on this team is normal, and if you think that, you're really deluding yourself. I mean, Steve is a legend, and Bruce can turn into a giant thing that you still haven't been able to explain with physics. And then there's Natasha.”

Tony nodded. That was explanation enough.

“So yeah, we're all pretty fucked up man, but it's not a contest. Even if it was, there's no guarantee you'd win. At least half of us were abused by our parents, and I don't think any of us have parents that are still alive. You'd be hard pressed to find more than a few happy moments in our childhoods, and I bet you Thor would win that one. He's a _god._ ”

“Yeah, I get what you're saying,” Tony sighed.

“No Tony, I'm not sure you do. I'm telling you that it's okay to be messed up by shit that happens to you, because god knows I am. I know I wasn't the one tortured during those weeks, but it wasn't a picnic for me either. I thought you were dead. I thought I was going to die. _Again._ And then when I found out you weren't dead, I thought I was going to have to watch you die. You don't remember any of it I bet, but you were messed up afterwards. You'd babble about things that didn't make sense, and half the time you weren't even speaking English. Sometimes you still didn't think I was real. I had to talk to you for hours just to keep myself awake so I could make sure you were still breathing. You stopped, you know. Scared the hell out of me.” Clint paused. “Um, I forget what my point was.”

“I think you were telling me it's okay to be a mess.”

Clint nodded. “Right. Because it is. Honestly, we should get a discount for all the therapy we do.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “We don't already?” he asked wryly.

Clint laughed. “I actually don't know.” He waved a hand. “Whatever. All I'm trying to say is, it's okay to be fucked up. No one expects you to be the same after something like that happens. But it's not a big deal. We patch you up, because that's what we do. Bruce deals with the bones and the lungs and stuff, and there are other people to deal with your brain.”

Tony nodded. “I know,” he said softly. “But it's a lifetime of having those thoughts engrained in me. It's hard to move past them overnight.”

Clint shrugged. “You know how long I was in therapy after Loki?”

Tony raised an eyebrow.

“Hint, I still haven't stopped.”

Tony grinned. “You did grow up in a circus,” he said by way of agreement. “Oh, and you're wrong about one thing.”

Clint tilted his head. “What's that?”

“I do remember it. Not all of it, but... bits and pieces.”

Clint raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”

Tony nodded. “You talked about Natasha, and when you met her. I heard about Agent nearly swooning when they found Cap. And you called me an asshole.” He frowned. “Rude.”

Clint laughed. “You were dying at the time. I felt justified.”

Tony smiled, and leaned back into the pillows. “So... Budapest then?”

Clint shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Nope. Nothing more. Whatever you heard is all you're getting. Not my fault you weren't conscious enough to hear it.”

“I can wait,” Tony sighed, closing his eyes. Emotions were exhausting.

“Tell me about how you and Tasha met again,” he demanded, but the effect was ruined somewhat when he had to stifle a yawn halfway through.

Clint huffed, but pulled his chair closer.

“It was just supposed to be a simple mission, but halfway through, I got new orders. The Black Widow had been sighted, and I was supposed to take her down. As you can tell, I didn't. And let me tell you, pretty much everyone was pissed when I brought her back...”

Tony smiled as Clint spoke, and he drifted off into sleep, fingers crossed for dreams of anything but drowning. Or torture. Or fire. Or cold.

Okay, he'd settle for a dreamless sleep.

 

Yes, that would be a good start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of the actual fic. The next chapter is a bonus/deleted scene that actually explains the title, but didn't manage to make its way into the final version. I kept the title though. Because of reasons.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonus chapter/deleted scene

“I was born with glass bones and paper skin. Every morning I break my legs and every night I break my arms. At night, I lie awake in agony until my heart attacks put me to sleep,” he recited.

Tony frowned, because that sounded awfully familiar, and he couldn't remember where it was from. “That's awfully deep for you Hawkeye,” he noted.

Clint shrugged, grinning slightly. “I'm more educated than people give me credit for.”

 

“Clinton Francis Barton, that was a quote from Spongebob! What's next, Dog Cops?”

Clint beamed at him. “Nah, I missed a bunch of episodes. Gotta get caught back up.”

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for my hc bingo to fill: forced to face fear, dungeons, hostile climate, and gaslighting. I'm not sure if it does, but hey, I can try.


End file.
